The Mets may have lost Thursday’s matinee against the Arizona Diamondbacks, giving them their first series loss at home this season, but there was at least one positive to take away from the rubber match, as Juan Soto blasted his first two home runs at Citi Field as a Met.
Soto, signed to the richest contract in baseball history, had gone 15 games at Citi Field as a member of the Mets without hitting a home run, but he launched two solo shots on Thursday, both of them going to left-center, as he showed off his patented opposite field power.
And if you ask manager Carlos Mendoza, the two-homer performance was something that’s been in the making for at least the past few days.
“It’s always good to see it, and we knew he was close,” Mendoza said after the 4-2 loss. “Whenever you have a guy who controls the strike zone as well as he does, continues to hit the ball hard even when he goes 0-for. I’ve been saying it for the past couple of days.
“Today I think the first at-bat was 110 [mph] right at the shortstop. Yeah, he’s hitting balls on the ground, but now finally not only hitting balls in the air, but when he’s going in that direction, left-center, he’s a pretty dangerous hitter, and it was good to see that today.”
“It feels good always to come through to help the team,” added Soto. “It just feels good… When I’m hitting the ball well that way, I feel [like] things are starting to get better for me at the plate. I start seeing the ball better and deeper and it’s a good sign.”
After signing a historic 15-year, $765 million contract with the Mets, external expectations for the 26-year-old were sky high. And while he may have gotten off to a slower start by his all-world standards, Soto was still going a good job of working the count, getting on base, and scoring runs in front of a red-hot Pete Alonso.
And now his offensive numbers are trending upwards, with his OPS at .822 after Thursday’s performance.
According to Soto, there’s never been any extra pressure to perform at a high level, no matter what his contract looks like.
“What pressure? I don’t have any pressure,” Soto said. “Mendoza has been really clear with me to make me feel comfortable and going out there to play. I don’t have any pressure at all so it’s just two homers that weren’t enough to get the win."
Even with the loss on Thursday, it’s hard to take anything away from what the Mets have accomplished over the first month-plus of the season. They’re now 13-3 at home, 21-11 overall, and have been riding their starting pitching, strong defense, and timely hitting to a 3.0-game lead in the ultra-competitive NL East.
“I feel like we’ve been doing a really good job,” Soto said. “We gotta give credit to our bullpen and the starting pitching – they’ve been great. We have a couple of guys out who are hurt, but they’ve been showing up everyday day in and day out since Day 1 so really happy, really excited to play behind those guys”
“Look where we’re at,” he added later. “We just gotta keep doing the same thing we’ve been doing since Day 1. Try to get on, get them over, get them in. That’s all we gotta do.”
